Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Ph.D., Professor
Janice and Julian Bers Professor
University of Pennsylvania
History & Sociology of Science
Logan Hall, 249 S. 36th Street, Room 324
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304
Telephone: (215) 898-7309
Fax: (215) 573-2231
E-mail
Ph.D. The Johns Hopkins University
M.A. University of California at Berkeley
B.A. Barnard College.
Areas of Specialization:
History of technology, history of genetics, genetics and social policy, history of reproduction, history of medical technology, gender and science, medicine, technology
Ruth Schwartz Cowan is an historian of science, technology and medicine. She was a member of the History Department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1967 to 2002, attaining the rank of Professor in 1984 and Emerita Professor in 2002. Between 1997 and 2002, she was the Chair of the Honors College at SUNY-Stony Brook; she also served as Director of Women's Studies from 1985-1990.
In July, 2002 Professor Cowan became Janice and Julian Bers Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Cowan is the author of four books and numerous articles. Her books are: The Social History of American Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); (with Neil M. Cowan) Our Parents' Lives: The Americanization of Eastern European Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1989) [revised second edition published as Our Parent's Lives: Everyday Life and Jewish Assimilation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996)]; Sir Francis Galton and the Study of Heredity in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Garland Press, 1985); and More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
Her new book, Heredity and Hope: the Case for Genetic Screening will be published by Harvard University Press in May, 2008.
Her next project, which she hopes to finish while on sabbatical leave during the academic year 2008-2009 is a history of American women engineers (with Neil M. Cowan).
In the fall semester, 2007, Professor Cowan and a group of Penn students researched and wrote a position paper for Congressman Joseph Sestak on the Genetic Information Non Discrimination Act of 2007 (GINA). The paper is available at GINA Position Paper
Professor Cowan has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Phi Beta Kappa Lecturer and a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology. She has had grants in support of her research from the Sloan Foundation, NSF, NEH, NIH (through ELSI) and the ACLS. She has been awarded the Leonardo daVinci Medal and the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology and the J.D. Bernal prize of the Society for the Social Study of Science. She is also a Fellow and Trustee of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Professor Cowan is active in two professional associations: the Society for the History of Technology (President, 1992-1994) and the History of Science Society. She serves on the editorial board of Social Studies of Science and was an editorial advisor to American National Biography. She has been a member of the Smithsonian Council and of the IEEE History Committee as well as the Advisory Board for the Lemelson Center for the History of Invention and Innovation. For several years, she was the Chair of the US National Committee, International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science and on the Visiting Committee for the Humanities at MIT.
